Collections of Resources on Education for Sustainability and Green Living

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Ready for a New Way of Thinking?

By Christopher Chase

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” ~Albert Einstein

If you turn on the news, the human species seems to be at a crisis
point. Poverty, racism, political division, ecological destruction,
social instability and other seemingly “unsolvable” problems appear to
be getting worse. And yet, when walking in a forest or looking up at the
night sky there is a sense that we live in a Universe of great balance,
mystery and beauty.

The wise among our species have repeatedly offered very simple
solutions to humanity’s difficulties. Walt Whitman and Van Gogh were
overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounds us, and sought to share that in
their poetry and paintings. The Dalai Lama has often said that we just
need to prioritise peace, gratitude, love and wisdom. That the human
family’s problems are caused by closed hearts and minds, and will be
solved as more and more of us open them. Could it be that simple?

“If there is love, there is hope to have real families,
real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your
mind is lost, if you continue to see other beings as enemies, then no
matter how much knowledge or education you have, no matter how much
material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue.”
~Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama’s advice aligns with what Jesus taught, what Charlie
Chaplin spoke of in the 1930s (see video below) as Hitler’s popularity
was rising in Germany. At that time, both Chaplin and Einstein stressed
our need for more compassion, imagination and kindness, less of an
emphasis on technology, materialism and knowledge.
They believed that humanity’s problems stem from a lack of love
rooted in a crisis of thinking, the dominant world view of warrior
civilizations that promote fear, aggression and attention to problems
instead of gratitude, love and attention to creative solutions.

The sad truth is that modern people see the world in simplistic ways,
much as our ancestors did 2000 years ago. Our secular institutions
(media, government, education) train us to categorise and
compartmentalise reality, to focus on differences, rather than
relationships and connections.

We seem to see life as a struggle, identifying ourselves (and others)
by race, religion, nationality, political affiliation, gender, sexual
preference (gay/straight), education level and/or career status. We
separate the world in our minds, setting ourselves into constant battle
with each other.

The recent election in the United States shows how such thinking can
feed polarisation, anger and conflict. These distinctions and
comparisons keep us boxed in “us vs. them” narratives of nationalism,
racism, elitism and identity politics. This feeds a perpetual warrior mentality, political conflict, militarism, a sense of competition, fear and division.

To become wiser as a species, Einstein believed that we need to
develop a broader and deeper sense of identity, one that focuses on our
relationship with the Universe (and one another) rather than cultural
differences. He encouraged us to transcend our human identifications (of
race, politics, gender, nationality, religion), focusing on our
connection to the Cosmos and the planet. Understanding ourselves to be
Earth residents, children of Nature (or God) and the Universe, points us
in the right direction. He said:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us
universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of
optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison
for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a
few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

What is missing in mainstream consciousness is an awareness of
ourselves as members of the human family, the Universe and the Earth
community. We tend to ignore that our cells and bodies are part of the
creative history of evolution. That our atoms are part of the history of
the Cosmos.

Peace and gratitude arise naturally in our hearts when we take time
to celebrate and reflect upon how we are each a part of a much greater
whole. Such awareness dawned on a wide scale for humanity during the
1960’s, and we need it to rise again. As Alan Watts expressed:

“If you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as
much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in
running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars,
and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that.”

What Einstein, Watts, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama
and many others believed is that our species has the potential to grow
wiser, more creative and loving as a species. We just need to be mindful
of our connection to the rest of humanity, to Nature and the Cosmos. We
need to be more rooted in a spiritual view, rather than a materialistic
one.

Most modern people are so preoccupied with economic status, social
ranks and cultural identities that we ignore the Universe that brought
us into being, the systems of Nature that we belong to, and that sustain
our lives. Because of this we get caught up in petty human dramas,
militarism, nationalism, economics and global games of politics.

Our species needs to understand how we are a living part of Nature,
to stop us from falling into the deluded thinking patterns and emotional
dramas we create. We need to see how our compartmentalised world
views create conflict (both inner and outer), limiting our ability to
cooperate with those who think differently than we do, suppressing our
potential for deeper peace, balance, wisdom, compassion and joy.

Spiritual traditions (together with a more unified vision of science)
can help remind us that we belong to the greater community of life.
That we live in a creative Universe, and belong to the natural world.

“Who would deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I
am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of
my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and
space?” ― D.T. Suzuki

Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching and the Dharma of the Buddha
point in this direction. It’s there in the mystic traditions of
Judaism, Christianity, Zen and Islam as well. Abraham Isaac Kook
describes this view (below) from the perspective of the Kabbalah and
Jewish mysticism:

“An epiphany enables you to sense creation not as
something completed, but as constantly becoming, evolving, ascending.
This transports you from a place where there is nothing new to a place
where there is nothing old, where everything renews itself, where heaven
and earth rejoice as at the moment of creation.”

Many Indigenous cultures identify daily with the Source of Life, with
Nature and the Earth community. This identification is
important, understanding the greater whole (and feeling gratitude in
their hearts) guides the community with problem-solving and decision
making.

Indigenous cultures have practices to help them stay conscious of their
Earth identity and responsibility to the planet, as well as human
generations into the future. Because of this native cultures have
lived more in balance and harmony with the Earth.

“Growth comes with an increasing awareness of and respect
for Great Mystery in all people and things, with an awareness that this
force of mystery is at work in all events. Growth comes through
tolerance for the infinite variety of ways in which Great Spirit, the
Infinite,may express itself in this Universe.” ~Ed McGaa, Oglala Lakota

Can civilization’s people grow wiser and more aware of our connection
to the Earth, more compassionate to other creatures and fellow human
beings? We must, because the Earth really is at a crisis point. The
struggle now of Native Americans trying to stop an oil pipeline at
Standing Rock, is indicative of the challenge we face, as a species. We
need to come together and challenge those still caught up in mindsets of
fear, materialism and greed. But will be more successful if our efforts
are grounded in a different way of thinking, guided by wisdom,
gratitude and love.

If we don’t learn to live in harmony with Nature (and be generous
with each other) all future generations will suffer. The future will be
dystopian, violent, poverty stricken and sorrowful, as it already is in
ghetto communities around the planet, in places like Syria, Yemen, Gaza
and Iraq.
We need to understand how cultural narratives and scientific
paradigms influence our world views. How beliefs shape our thinking, how
thoughts influence feelings, how emotions regulate our actions, the
way we view problems and experience our lives.

As we grow wiser, and learn to love more deeply, the human
community will be in a better position to solve our problems. Because
we’ll have identified and corrected (in our hearts and minds) the source
of our difficulties, our disconnection with wisdom and love (within
us), Nature, Life and the Universe (all around us).

Understanding how rare and beautiful our planet is (and how precious
our lives are) can open our hearts, fill us with gratitude, guide our
creativity, lead us to new ways of thinking, and more humane ways of
being.

By Christopher Chase, December 2016

“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your
body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the
crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded
their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas
clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each
other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the
universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I
actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are
better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the
universe and the universe is in us.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Over the course of the last hundred years, Western scientists have
given us a deeper view of the Universe, of Life & Nature as a
creative and unified self-organizing process. Unfortunately, most modern
societies are still operating with outdated ideas and assumptions, that
do not reflect this new paradigm. Albert Einstein understood this, as
have many others. In order to survive as a species, it is essential that
we shift paradigms, developing ways of thinking (and behaving) that are
more aligned with how human life and Nature’s systems actually work.” ~Paradigms are Made for Shifting

“What is needed to launch our societies along the humanistic path is
some sort of evolutionary compass. Some way of guiding our efforts so
that they are in tune with, aligned with, the general evolutionary
processes of which we are a part… So
rather than seek to dominate the planet, the quest becomes one of
dynamic harmonization, of evolutionary consonance, in short, of syntony.
The evolutionary compass, then, would be one that points our way toward
syntonious pathways for future creation.” ~Alexander Laszlo

“The greatest revolution of our time is in the way we see the world.
The mechanistic paradigm underlying the Industrial Growth Society gives
way to the realization that we belong to a living, self-organizing
cosmos.” ~Joanna Macy

“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part
of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the
universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” ~Eckhart Tolle